Critical Making

Mon/Wed 9:30–10:45 / Room L114 in 12WV

Critical making is hands-on hardware practice as a form of reflection and analysis: a way of thinking through what (and how) computing and digital media mean by understanding how they work, building on the literature of media studies and the digital humanities. This course complements other courses in Media, Culture, and Communication by turning from software to hardware, to the physicality of computation and communications infrastructure. We will take objects apart, literally and figuratively, and in the process will learn to interpret and to intervene – using prototyping, reverse engineering, hardware hacking, design fiction, scenarios, fabrication and other approaches – in the material layer of digital technologies. Students will produce individual “provocation projects” and team final projects that explore, explicate and challenge contemporary technological life.

Assignments Participation will be based on attendance, diligent reading, and active participation in all class activities. Students will be responsible for producing a “provocation project,” a critical hardware intervention done by individual students to critically reflect on one of the class themes (due 3/25), and a “final project,” done in teams to produce a more complex object to intervene in one of the areas discussed in class (due 5/4). Every week will include a smaller, faster assignment related to a facet of critical making and design. Detailed instructions will be provided to students in class for these assignments.

Participation: 20%
Provocation Project: 30%
Final Project: 50%

Grading rubric
A = Excellent This work is comprehensive and detailed, integrating themes and concepts from discussions, lectures and readings. Writing is clear, analytical and organized. Arguments offer specific examples and concisely evaluate evidence. Students who earn this grade are prepared for class, synthesize course materials and contribute insightfully.
B = Good This work is complete and accurate, offering insights at general level of understanding. Writing is clear, uses examples properly and tends toward broad analysis. Classroom participation is consistent and thoughtful.
C = Average This work is correct but is largely descriptive, lacking analysis. Writing is vague and at times tangential. Arguments are unorganized, without specific examples or analysis. Classroom participation is inarticulate.
D = Unsatisfactory This work is incomplete, and evidences little understanding of the readings or discussions. Arguments demonstrate inattention to detail, misunderstand course material and overlook significant themes. Classroom participation is spotty, unprepared and off topic.
F = Failed This grade indicates a failure to participate.
Plus and minus grade indicate the standing within the above grades.

Week 5: “I Fight for the User”: The Politics of Hardware Access
Reading: Silvanovich, Natalie: “Many More Tamagotchis Were Harmed in the Making of this Presentation” and Tamagotchi ROM dump blog excerpts. Torrone, Phillip: “The Owner’s Manifesto”

Weeks 10–13: Assembling Things Together
Having delved into a single, specific object we now put it into steadily larger material contexts, using theory and practice as a lens: flows of materials, capital, and energy from the body to the planet.

Week 10: Affordances and Ergonomics: Making the Body
Reading: von Uexkull, Jakob: A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: with a Theory of Meaning, excerpts.

4/20 - Discuss and debate the concept of comprehensive design and systemic social problems
4/22 - Thinking with things, large and small // Due: Scenario planning projects

Weeks 14–15: Intensive Final Project Collaborations
Student teams (or individuals, in some cases) present their in-progress projects in a series of circulating talks and demonstrations, with in-class feedback and production help from ourselves, other students, and guests.